Last July I wrote an article called how fashion retailers use email marketing, in which I investigated 16 brands including ASOS, Topshop, H&M and Gap to check the frequency, content, subject lines and ultimately effectiveness of their various email campaigns.

Now six months later I’ve decided to follow up the article by cautiously peering into the inbox of the email address I created specifically for the investigation to see what its current state is.

One of the biggest barriers for customers about to use a checkout is forcing them to register their details first.

Presenting them with page after page of forms in which they need to fill out the most unnecessary of personal details is a quick way to send your customers to the exit, leaving many abandoned baskets and lowering your conversion.

Continuing my quest to investigate how various industries use email marketing, here’s a look at how some of our favourite fashion retailers use this most effective yet often neglected marketing channel.

Much like my round-up on the travel industry a couple of weeks ago, I’ll be looking at the frequency of emails, the use of subject lines, the email content itself, special offers, editorial voice, personalisation, relevance… All of the many tools that a company can utilise to coerce the recipient to open up an email or even engage with it.

As well as the above criteria, I also filled up a shopping basket and abandoned it without purchase to see if I would receive any reminder emails. I also entered my birthday as a date in between sign-up and writing this article to see if I was offered any discounts or at some birthday wishes. It’s not fraud, it’s science!

In this post, bear with me and you’ll get a couple of case studies and some best practice from brands using TV and promoted tweet tie-ups.

Before I give you the fun stuff, I want to say that best practice is all that matters. Ignore all the stats about engagement and sales uplift.

I don’t usually advocate ignoring stats, but as B2B marketing and service industries now pervade major cities of the developed world, we are awash with stats. And stats that claim to explain general concepts, such as generic increase in purchase intent after viewing a promoted tweet that references TV, are not helpful to you.

Yes, these stats succinctly explain the perceived benefits of advertising on Twitter, but like all data, it’s only that which directly pertains to your company that is of use.

There’s no point examining averaged trends when what you’re interested in is your business. Being blinded by amazing engagement stats will mean you don’t think properly about your campaigns. The last thing you want to do is drip out a poorly conceived set of promoted tweets and have faith they will deliver ROI.

The success of your marketing and advertising is dependent entirely upon detail; detail that’s way more granular than simply what channels you decide to advertise in.

And, on the surface, there's a good reason for that: popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter give brands a front-row seat to the collective conversation consumers are having about their products and services. From that conversation, brands may, in theory, be able to gain valuable insights that help them connect with consumers and serve them better.

Amazon is online retail's 800 pound gorilla, but even so, it has tried to play nicely with others. One of the ways it has done that is with the Amazon Marketplace, which allows third parties to sell through its site.

The Marketplace accounted for over 30% of Amazon.com's unit sales in Q4 2010, and has helped fuel at least some of Amazon.com's continued impressive growth.